Managing communications between computing nodes

ABSTRACT

Techniques are described for managing communications between multiple intercommunicating computing nodes, such as multiple virtual machine nodes hosted on one or more physical computing machines or systems. In some situations, users may specify groups of computing nodes and optionally associated access policies for use in the managing of the communications for those groups, such as by specifying which source nodes are allowed to transmit data to particular destinations nodes. In addition, determinations of whether initiated data transmissions from source nodes to destination nodes are authorized may be dynamically negotiated for and recorded for later use in automatically authorizing future such data transmissions without negotiation. This abstract is provided to comply with rules requiring an abstract, and it is submitted with the intention that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______(Attorney Docket #120137.525), filed concurrently and entitled “ManagingExecution Of Programs By Multiple Computing Systems,” which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The following disclosure relates generally to managing communicationsbetween computing nodes, such as to control outgoing transmissions ofdata to remote destination nodes so as to reflect dynamically determinedauthorizations for the transmissions.

BACKGROUND

Data centers housing significant numbers of interconnected computingsystems have become commonplace, such as private data centers that areoperated by and on behalf of a single organization, and public datacenters that are operated by entities as businesses that provide accessto computing resources to customers under various business models. Forexample, some public data center operators provide network access,power, and secure installation facilities for hardware owned by variouscustomers, while other public data center operators provide “fullservice” facilities that also include the actual hardware resources usedby their customers. However, as the scale and scope of typical datacenters has increased, the task of provisioning, administering, andmanaging the physical computing resources has become increasinglycomplicated.

The advent of virtualization technologies for commodity hardware hasprovided a partial solution to the problem of managing large-scalecomputing resources for many customers with diverse needs, allowingvarious computing resources to be efficiently and securely sharedbetween multiple customers. For example, virtualization technologiessuch as those provided by VMWare, XEN, or User-Mode Linux may allow asingle physical computing machine to be shared among multiple users byproviding each user with one or more virtual machines hosted by thesingle physical computing machine, with each such virtual machine beinga software simulation acting as a distinct logical computing system thatprovides users with the illusion that they are the sole operators andadministrators of a given hardware computing resource, while alsoproviding application isolation and security among the various virtualmachines. Furthermore, some virtualization technologies are capable ofproviding virtual resources that span one or more physical resources,such as a single virtual machine with multiple virtual processors thatactually spans multiple distinct physical computing systems.

However, one problem that arises in the context of data centers thatvirtually or physically host large numbers of applications or systemsfor a set of diverse customers involves providing network isolation forthe systems operated by or on behalf of each customer, such as to allowcommunications between those systems (if desired by the customer) whilerestricting undesired communications to those systems from othersystems. Traditional firewall technologies may be employed to providelimited benefits, but problems persist. For example, firewalls aretypically configured to filter incoming network traffic at or near thedestination of the traffic, but this allows malicious applications tocause resource outages by flooding a given network with traffic, even ifthe firewalls were able to perfectly block all such incoming networktraffic. In addition, firewalls do not typically include facilities fordynamically modifying filtering rules to reflect the types of highlydynamic resource provisioning that may occur in the context of alarge-scale data center hosting many thousands of virtual machines.Thus, as new applications and systems come online and others go offline,for example, traditional firewalls lack the ability to dynamicallydetermine appropriate filtering rules required to operate correctly,instead necessitating time-consuming and error-prone manualconfiguration of such filtering rules.

Thus, given such problems, it would be beneficial to provide techniquesthat allow users to efficiently specify communications policies that areautomatically enforced via management of data transmissions for multiplecomputing nodes, such as for multiple hosted virtual machines operatingin one or more data centers or other computing resource facilities.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a network diagram illustrating an example embodiment in whichmultiple transmission manager components manage communications betweencomputing nodes.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing systemsuitable for executing an embodiment of a system for managingcommunications between computing nodes.

FIGS. 3A-3B illustrate examples of using group membership informationfor managing communications between computing nodes.

FIGS. 4A-4F illustrate examples of dynamically modified transmissionmanagement rules used for managing communications between computingnodes.

FIG. 5 illustrates examples of data transmissions between twointercommunicating computing nodes and associated transmission managercomponents that manage the communications.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram of an example embodiment of a NodeCommunication routine.

FIGS. 7A-7B illustrate a flow diagram of an example embodiment of aTransmission Manager routine.

FIG. 8 illustrates a flow diagram of an example embodiment of a DTMSystem Manager routine.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Techniques are described for managing communications between multipleintercommunicating computing nodes. In some embodiments, the computingnodes include virtual machine nodes that are hosted on one or morephysical computing machines or systems, and the communications includetransmissions of data (e.g., messages, data packets or frames, etc.)between nodes hosted on distinct physical machines over one or morenetworks. In addition, in some embodiments the management of a datatransmission or other communication between a source node and adestination node is provided by one or more intermediary computing nodesthat are capable of identifying and manipulating the communicationsbetween the source and destination nodes. For example, in embodiments inwhich a source node and a destination node are each virtual machineshosted on two distinct physical computing machines, the intermediarycomputing nodes may include one or more other virtual machines hosted onone or both of the two physical computing machines.

In addition, in at least some embodiments the management of datatransmissions includes analyzing outgoing data transmissions that arerequested or otherwise initiated from a source node to one or moredestination nodes in order to determine whether the data transmissionsare authorized, such as under control of an intermediary computing nodeassociated with the source node, and with the data transmissions beingallowed to continue over one or more networks to the destination node(s)only if authorization is determined to exist. The determination ofauthorization by a intermediary computing node may, for example, bebased at least in part on defined data transmission policies thatspecify groups of one or more source nodes that are authorized tocommunicate with groups of one or more destination nodes, such as when asource node and destination node both belong to a common group of nodes.In addition, an intermediary computing node associated with a sourcenode may communicate with a distinct intermediary computing nodeassociated with an intended destination node in order to negotiate forauthorization for a data transmission, and may further store a rule orother indication that reflects the results of the negotiation for usewith future data transmissions from the source node to the destinationnode, such as a transmission management rule that indicates that futuresuch data transmissions are authorized if the negotiation indicates thatauthorization is provided for the current data transmission.

In some embodiments, an application execution service executesthird-party customers' applications using multiple physical machines(e.g., in one or more data centers) that each host multiple virtualmachines (which are each able to execute one or more applications for acustomer), and the described techniques may be used by one or more datatransmission management systems executing as part of the applicationexecution service to control communications to and from the applicationsof each customer. Customers may provide applications for execution tothe execution service, as discussed in greater detail below, and mayreserve execution time and other resources on physical or virtualhardware facilities provided by the execution service. In addition,customers may create new groups of computing nodes (e.g., multiplecomputing nodes that are currently each executing one of multipleinstances of a program of the customer), specify access policies for thegroups, and have the membership of the groups and/or the specifiedaccess policies be updated (whether automatically or manually) toreflect changing conditions, such as to reflect new applicationinstances that are executed, previously executing application instancesthat are no longer executing, and/or new or adjusted access policies(e.g., to reflect new security requirements, such as by changing whetheraccess to other computing nodes, groups and/or applications is allowedor denied).

In some embodiments, access policies describe source nodes (alsoreferred to as “sending nodes” or “senders”) that are allowed totransmit data to a particular destination node or group of nodes, suchas by describing such source nodes individually (e.g., via networkaddress or other identifier), via ranges of network addresses or otheridentifiers, as one or more groups of related source nodes, etc., whilein other embodiments access policies may instead in a similar mannerdescribe destination nodes that are allowed to receive datatransmissions from one or more particular source nodes or groups ofnodes. In the absence of specified access policies and/or the ability todetermine that a particular initiated data transmission is authorized,some embodiments may provide default access policies and/orauthorization polices, such as to deny all data transmissions unlessdetermined to be authorized, or instead to allow all data transmissionsunless determined to not be authorized.

In one example embodiment, multiple data transmission manager componentsof a Data Transmission Management (“DTM”) system work together to managethe data transmissions of a number of intercommunicating participantcomputing nodes. Initially, when a participant computing node comesonline, a data transmission manager component associated with theparticipant node determines the node's network address (e.g., IPaddress) or other network location, any groups to which the nodebelongs, and indications of source nodes that are authorized to transmitdata to the node. Later, when the participant node attempts to initiatecommunication with a remote destination node, the associated datatransmission manager component detects the initiated communication, anddetermines whether authorization for the communication already existsbased on obtained authorization for a prior communication from theparticipant source node to the destination node. If existingauthorization is not available, the associated data transmission managercomponent attempts to negotiate authorization to communicate with theremote destination node, such as by communicating with a remote datatransmission manager component associated with the remote destinationnode (e.g., by sending a negotiation request that triggers thenegotiation)—a negotiation request for a data transmission from aparticipant source node to a destination node may contain informationrelated to the network identity and group membership of the participantsource node.

After the remote data transmission manager component associated with theremote destination node receives a negotiation request on behalf of asource node, the component determines whether the source node isauthorized to communicate with the remote destination node based on anyaccess and/or transmission policies of the remote destination node(e.g., based on the groups of which the remote destination node is amember). If it is determined that authorization exists, the remote datatransmission manager component responds to the negotiation request witha reply indicating that authorization to communicate is provided. Thedata transmission manager component associated with the participantsource node receives this reply, and proceeds to allow data to betransmitted to the remote destination node (whether by transmitting thedata on behalf of the participant source node, allowing a datatransmission by the participant source node to proceed, etc.). If thereply instead indicates that authorization to communicate has not beenobtained, the data transmission manager associated with the participantsource node proceeds to prevent the data transmission to the destinationnode from occurring (whether by dropping or otherwise discarding anintercepted data transmission, by indicating to the participant sourcenode and/or others not to perform any data transmissions to thedestination node, etc.). In addition, the data transmission managercomponent associated with the participant source node may cache orotherwise store the result of the negotiation so that futuretransmissions do not require the additional step of negotiation, and thedata transmission manager component associated with the destination nodemay similarly cache or otherwise store the result of the negotiation. Inthis manner, data transmission manager systems dynamically determinewhether the associated computing nodes that they manage are authorizedto transmit data to various remote destination nodes.

For illustrative purposes, some embodiments are described below in whichspecific types of management of communications are performed in specifictypes of situations. These examples are provided for illustrativepurposes and are simplified for the sake of brevity, and the inventivetechniques can be used in a wide variety of other situations, some ofwhich are discussed below, and the techniques are not limited to usewith virtual nodes, with outgoing data transmissions, within one or moredata centers, etc.

FIG. 1 is a network diagram illustrating an example embodiment in whichmultiple Transmission Manager (“TM”) components manage communicationsbetween computing nodes, with the multiple TM components being part of aData Transmission Management (“DTM”) system managing the datatransmissions of various computing nodes located within a data center100. In this example, data center 100 comprises a number of racks 105,which each include a number of physical computing systems 110 a-c and arack support computing system 122. The computing systems 110 a-c eachprovide one or more virtual machine nodes 120, which each may beemployed to provide an independent computing environment to hostapplications within the data center 100. In addition, the computingsystems 110 a-c each host a TM component node 115 that manages outgoingdata transmissions from other virtual machine nodes 120 hosted on thecomputing system, as well as incoming data transmissions from othernodes (whether local or remote to the data center 100) to those hostedvirtual machine nodes on the computing system. In this exampleembodiment, the rack support computing system 122 provides utilityservices for computing systems local to the rack (e.g., data storageservices, network proxies, application monitoring and administration,etc.), as well as possibly other computing systems located in the datacenter, although in other embodiments such rack support computingsystems may not be used. The computing systems 110 a-c and the racksupport computing system 122 of a rack in this example all share acommon, high-speed, rack-level network interconnect (e.g., via a sharedbackplane, one or more hubs and/or switches that are physically local orremote to the particular rack, etc.), not shown.

In addition, the example data center 100 further comprises additionalcomputing systems 130 a-b and 135 that are not located on a rack, butshare a common network interconnect to a TM component 125 associatedwith those additional computing systems, although in other embodimentssuch additional non-rack computing systems may not be present. In thisexample, computing system 135 also hosts a number of virtual machinenodes, while computing systems 130 a-b instead act as a single physicalmachine node. The TM component 125 similarly manages incoming andoutgoing data transmissions for the associated virtual machine nodeshosted on computing system 135 and for computing system nodes 130 a-b.An optional computing system 145 is also illustrated at the interconnectbetween the data center 100 local network and the external network 170,such as may be employed to provide a number of services (e.g., networkproxies, the filtering or other management of incoming and/or outgoingdata transmissions, etc.), including to manage outgoing datatransmissions from some or all nodes internal to the data center 100 tonodes located in additional data centers 160 or other systems 180external to the data center 100 and/or to manage incoming datatransmissions to some or all internal nodes from external nodes. Anoptional DTM Group Manager component 140 is also illustrated and mayprovide a number of services to TM components local to the data center100, such as to maintain global state information for the TM components(e.g., group membership information, access policies, etc.).

The example data center 100 is connected to a number of other computingsystems via a network 170 (e.g., the Internet), including additionalcomputing systems 180 that may be operated by the operator of the datacenter 100 or third parties, additional data centers 160 that also maybe operated by the operator of the data center 100 or third parties, andan optional DTM System Manager system 150. In this example, the DTMSystem Manager 150 may maintain global state information for TMcomponents in a number of data centers, such as the illustrated datacenter 100 and additional data centers 160. The information maintainedand provided by the DTM System Manager may, for example, include groupmembership information, access policies, etc. Although the example DTMSystem Manager 150 is depicted as being external to data center 100 inthis example embodiment, in other embodiments it may instead be locatedwithin data center 100.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing systemsuitable for managing communications between computing nodes, such as byexecuting an embodiment of a TM component. The example computing system200 includes a central processing unit (“CPU”) 235, various input/output(“I/O”) devices 205, storage 240, and memory 245, with the I/O devicesincluding a display 210, a network connection 215, a computer-readablemedia drive 220, and other I/O devices 230.

In the illustrated embodiment, an example TM component 250 is executingin memory 245 in order to manage the data transmissions betweenassociated nodes 260 a-c that are being managed and other nodes (such asthose represented by the illustrated other computing systems 275connected via a network 265). In the present example, the managed nodes260 a-c are resident on independent computing systems and are connectedto the computing system 200 and TM 250 via a physical network, althoughin other embodiments one or more of the managed nodes 260 a-c mayalternatively be hosted on computing system 200 as virtual machinenodes. FIG. 2 further illustrates a DTM System Manager system 270connected to the computing system 200, such as to maintain and provideinformation related to the operation of one or more TM components (suchas access policies and group membership), as discussed in greater detailelsewhere.

It will be appreciated that computing systems 200, 260 a-c, 270 and 275are merely illustrative and are not intended to limit the scope of thepresent invention. For example, computing system 200 may be connected toother devices that are not illustrated, including through one or morenetworks such as the Internet or via the World Wide Web (“Web”). Moregenerally, a “node” or other computing system may comprise anycombination of hardware or software that can interact and perform thedescribed types of functionality, including without limitation desktopor other computers, database servers, network storage devices and othernetwork devices, PDAs, cellphones, wireless phones, pagers, electronicorganizers, Internet appliances, television-based systems (e.g., usingset-top boxes and/or personal/digital video recorders), and variousother consumer products that include appropriate inter-communicationcapabilities. In addition, the functionality provided by the illustratedcomponents and systems may in some embodiments be combined in fewercomponents or distributed in additional components. Similarly, in someembodiments the functionality of some of the illustrated components maynot be provided and/or other additional functionality may be available.

It will also be appreciated that, while various items are illustrated asbeing stored in memory or on storage while being used, these items orportions of them can be transferred between memory and other storagedevices for purposes of memory management and data integrity.Alternatively, in other embodiments some or all of the softwarecomponents and/or systems may execute in memory on another device andcommunicate with the illustrated computing system via inter-computercommunication. Some or all of the components, systems and datastructures may also be stored (e.g., as software instructions orstructured data) on a computer-readable medium, such as a hard disk, amemory, a network, or a portable media article to be read by anappropriate drive or via an appropriate connection. The systems,components and data structures can also be transmitted as generated datasignals (e.g., as part of a carrier wave or other analog or digitalpropagated signal) on a variety of computer-readable transmissionmediums, including wireless-based and wired/cable-based mediums, and cantake a variety of forms (e.g., as part of a single or multiplexed analogsignal, or as multiple discrete digital packets or frames). Suchcomputer program products may also take other forms in otherembodiments. Accordingly, the present invention may be practiced withother computer system configurations.

FIGS. 3A-3B illustrate examples of using group membership informationfor managing communications between computing nodes. The dataillustrated in FIGS. 3A and 3B may be maintained and provided in variousmanners, such as by the DTM System Manager system 150 shown in FIG. 1and/or by one or more of various TM components (e.g., in a distributedmanner without use of a central system).

FIG. 3A depicts a table 300 that contains membership information formultiple node groups. In particular, each data row 304 b-304 f describesa membership association between a node denoted in column 302 a and agroup denoted in column 302 b. Thus, for example, rows 304 c and 304 dindicate that node group Group2 includes at least nodes A and B, androws 304 e and 304 f indicate that node D is a member of at least twogroups. For illustrative purposes, the nodes in the present example areall indicated by single letters, such as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, etc., althoughthey could instead be indicated in other ways in other embodiments, suchas Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses, DNS domain names, etc. Similarly,groups are indicated in the present example by strings such as “Group1”,but various other types of names may be used, and in at least someembodiments users may be able to specify descriptive group names forgroups that they use. Column 302 c indicates that various types ofadditional information may be specified and used for groups, such asexpiration dates, contact information for the user that created orotherwise manages the group, etc.

FIG. 3B depicts a table 310 that specifies access rights associated withsome of the groups indicated in FIG. 3A. In particular, each data row314 b-314 g indicates a named sender in column 312 b that is authorizedto act as a source node to transmit data to any node that is a member ofthe group named in column 312 a. In the present example, such accessrights may be specified specific to a particular transmission protocol,with three example protocols shown, those being HTTP 312 c, FTP 312 d,and Simple Mail Transport Protocol (“SMTP”) 312 e. In addition, sendersmay be identified in three different manners in the present example,including by IP address, by IP address range, or by group name, althoughother naming conventions may be employed in other embodiments (e.g., DNSdomain names). For example, row 314 b indicates that sending nodes thathave IP addresses in the range 0.0.0.0/0 (used here to represent allhosts) may initiate communications using the HTTP protocol to nodes thatare members of Group1, but that such sending nodes may not initiatecommunication to nodes that are members of Group1 using either the FTPor SMTP protocol. Row 314 c shows that source nodes that are members ofGroup1 may initiate communications to nodes that are members of Group2using the HTTP protocol, but not the FTP or SMTP protocol. Row 314 dshows that source nodes that are members of Group3 may initiatecommunication to nodes that are members of Group2 using the HTTP or SMTPprotocols, but not the FTP protocol. Row 314 e shows that the singlesource node with the IP address 196.25.1.23 may initiate communicationwith member nodes of Group2 using any of the three listed protocols.Subsequent rows 314 f-314 h contain descriptions of additional accesspolicies. Column 312 f indicates that additional information may bespecified with respect to access policies (e.g., additional protocols,types of operations, types of data formats, policy expiration criteriasuch as timeouts, contact information for the user that created orotherwise manages the policy, etc.).

In the example shown in FIG. 3B, access policies may be specified on aper-transmission protocol basis. In the present example, when a sourceis granted access via a particular protocol, such as HTTP, this may betaken to mean that the sender may send Transmission Control Protocol(“TCP”) packets to nodes in the specified group at the default port forHTTP, port 80. Other embodiments may allow access rights to be specifiedat other levels of details, such as to not indicate particularprotocols, or to further specify particular ports for use withparticular protocols. For example, some embodiments may allow accessrights to more generally be specified with respect to any transmissionproperties of particular network transmissions, such as types of packetswithin particular protocols (e.g., TCP SYN packets, broadcast packets,multicast packets, TCP flags generally, etc.), connection limits (e.g.,maximum number of concurrent connections permitted), packet size, packetarrival or departure time, packet time-to-live, packet payload contents(e.g., packets containing particular strings), etc. In addition, otherembodiments may specify access policies in various manners. For example,some embodiments may provide for the specification of negative accesspolicies, such as ones that specify that all nodes except for thespecified senders have certain access rights. Also, differentembodiments may provide varying semantics for default (unlisted) accesspolicies. For example, some embodiments may provide a default policythat no sender may communicate with nodes of a given group unlessauthorized by a particular other policy, with other embodiments mayprovide a default policy that senders operated by a given user may bydefault communicate with any other nodes operated by the same user, orthat nodes in a given group may by default communicate with other nodesin the same group. Finally, various embodiments may specify groups andgroup membership in various ways, such as by providing for hierarchiesof groups or to allow for groups to be members of other groups, suchthat a policy would apply to any node below an indicated point in thehierarchy or to any node that is a member of a indicated group or of anysub-groups of the indicated group.

FIGS. 4A-4F illustrate examples of dynamically modified transmissionmanagement rules used for managing communications between computingnodes. In the example embodiment, the transmission management rules areused by a given TM component to make decisions about whether toauthorize or not authorize data transmissions by one or more associatednodes that are managed by the TM component, with each TM componentmaintaining its own set of rules. In other embodiments, the rules shownin FIGS. 4A-4F could alternatively be maintained by the DTM GroupManager component 140 of FIG. 1, the DTM System Manager system 150 ofFIG. 1, or one or more other components that provide shared access toone or more TM components.

In the example illustrated in FIGS. 4A-4F, two example TM componentsDTM1 and DTM2 dynamically generate and modify transmission managementrules over time based on initiated data transmissions, with DTM1managing two associated nodes A and B and with DTM2 managing associatednode D. Both example DTMs also maintain information related to the groupmemberships of nodes being managed, as well as to associated accesspolicies for the groups. In the present example, node A belongs toGroup1, node B belongs to Group2, and node D belongs to Group3 andGroup4, as shown in rows 304 b-e in FIG. 3A. The DTMs may obtaininformation about group membership and access policies in various ways.For example, when a new node to be managed by a particular DTM comesonline, the DTM may be notified of this new node and its network address(e.g. IP address), and the DTM may be able to access the groupmembership and access policy information for the new node (e.g., byquerying and/or being notified by the DTM Group Manager component 140 orthe DTM System Manager system 150, by retrieving the information from anetwork-accessible data store, etc.). In addition, changes related togroup membership (e.g., a particular existing node is added to orremoved from a group) and access policies (e.g., the access policiesrelated to a particular group are modified, such as to now allow datatransmissions from another group that previously did not have suchauthorization) may be communicated to DTMs in a variety of ways. In someembodiments, only the DTMs that are managing nodes affected by aparticular change will be notified, such as via information sent from,for example, a DTM Group Manager component and/or a DTM System Managersystem. In other embodiments, such changes may be broadcast to all DTMs,or instead all DTMs may be configured to periodically poll anappropriate component in order to obtain updates related to such statechanges.

FIG. 4A illustrates initial conditions for DTM1 and DTM2 before any ofthe three nodes have initiated any communications with other nodes.Table 400 represents the transmission management rule set and otherinformation maintained by DTM1. Row 401 lists the nodes that arecurrently managed by DTM1, in this case nodes A and B. Table 400 furtherincludes a sub-table 402 that shows the transmission management rulesmaintained by DTM1. Each row 404 a-404 b can hold a transmissionmanagement rule that describes a transmission policy with respect to anode, with each rule specifying a source 403 a, a destination 403 b, andan action 403 c. Because no nodes have initiated communication at thispoint, the rule set shown is empty, although in some embodiments a lowpriority default rule may be included (e.g., if no other rules apply,deny an initiated data transmission). Similarly, Table 405 shows thetransmission management rules maintained by DTM2. Row 406 shows thatDTM2 manages a single node, D. In addition, sub-table 407 shows an emptytransmission management rule set, because node D has yet to initiate anycommunication.

FIG. 4B shows the state of the rule sets after node B has initiatedcommunication with node D via the HTTP protocol. When node B attempts tobegin to transmit data to node D, DTM1 first inspects its rule set todetermine whether there are any existing rules that govern datatransmissions from node B to node D. Finding none, DTM1 negotiates withDTM2 to determine whether node B is authorized to transmit data to nodeD, and as part of the negotiation DTM1 informs DTM2 that node B hasattempted to transmit data to node D via HTTP and that node B is amember of Group2. In some embodiments, such a negotiation involves DTM1generating and transmitting a negotiation message to destination node D,with the expectation that node D's DTM (whose identity and networkaddress may be unknown to DTM1) will intercept and respond to thenegotiation message in an appropriate manner. As described above, DTM2knows that node D is a member of groups Group3 and Group4, as shown inrows 304 e and 304 f of FIG. 3A, and that Group3 has allowed members ofGroup2 to initiate communications via the HTTP protocol, as shown in row314 f of FIG. 3B. Because the desired communication is allowed by thestated access policies, DTM2 responds to the negotiation request bysending a response that indicates authorization for node B tocommunicate with node D to DTM1. DTM2 further stores a transmissionmanagement rule in row 419 a that allows HTTP communication from sourcenode B to destination node D. After DTM1 receives the responseindicating authorization from DTM2, it also stores a transmissionmanagement rule in row 414 a that allows HTTP communication from sourcenode B to destination node D. In the present example, because the twoDTMs have negotiated and stored rules granting authorization for node Bto transmit data to node D via HTTP, future data transmissions from nodeB to node D using the same protocol will not necessitate there-negotiation of authorization. In addition, while not illustratedhere, in some embodiments the DTM components will also automaticallyauthorize at least some data transmissions from node D to node B (e.g.,to authorize replies from node D to data transmissions to node D fromnode B), whether by adding corresponding transmission management rulesor by otherwise authorizing such data transmissions.

In some embodiments, any data destined for node D that was received fromnode B by DTM1 before the negotiation completed would have been queuedby DTM1 until it was determined whether or not node B was authorized totransmit data to node D. In such embodiments, after having received anindication of authorization to communicate with node B, DTM1 would thentransmit any queued data to node D, as well as any data that arrivedsubsequent to the negotiation. In other embodiments, any data destinedfor node D that was received from node B by DTM1 prior to the completionof the negotiation would instead be discarded by DTM1. Such techniquesmay be appropriate in situations in which some data transmission loss isacceptable or in which a sending node will resend any data transmissionsthat are not received and acknowledged by the intended recipient. Forexample, many transmission protocols will retransmit any lost packets(e.g., based on the timeout and retransmission mechanisms of TCP), andwhile such a discard-based approach may result in the initial loss ofsome packets that should ultimately have been delivered (e.g., in thecase of a successful negotiation) in this situation, the retransmissionwill ensure that those initial packets will be resent. Alternatively, insome embodiments before a negotiation is completed or authorization isotherwise obtained for node B to transmit data to node D, the datatransmissions could be sent toward node D and be queued at DTM2 (e.g.,after being intercepted by DTM2) until authorization is obtained or DTM2otherwise determines to forward the queued data transmissions to node D(or to discard the data transmission if authorization is ultimately notobtained).

FIG. 4C shows the state of the rule sets after node D has initiatedcommunication with node A via the SMTP protocol. When node D attempts tobegin to transmit data to node A, DTM2 first inspects its rule set todetermine whether there are any existing rules that govern datatransmissions from node D to node A. Finding none, DTM2 negotiates withDTM1 to determine whether node D is authorized to transmit data to nodeA using the given protocol. DTM2 informs DTM1 that node D is a member ofGroup3 and Group4 as shown in 304 e and 304 f in FIG. 3A, and that nodeD has attempted to communicate with node A via SMTP. DTM1 knows thatnode A is a member of Group1 as shown in row 304 b in FIG. 3A and thatGroup1 has granted access to all hosts to communicate with it via HTTP,but not SMTP, as shown in row 314 b of FIG. 3B. Because no host isallowed to transmit data to node A using the SMTP protocol, DTM1responds to the negotiation request by sending a response to DTM2 thatindicates a denial of authorization for node D to communicate with nodeA via the SMTP protocol. DTM1 further stores a transmission managementrule in row 424 b that denies SMTP communication from source node D todestination node A. After DTM2 receives the response indicating a denialof authorization from DTM1, it also stores a transmission managementrule in row 429 b that denies authorization for future SMTPcommunications from source node D to destination node A. Again, any datathat node D attempted to transmit to node A prior to the completion ofthe negotiation would have been queued by DTM2 in at least someembodiments. Upon completion of the negotiation process, DTM2 would thendrop any queued and all future data sent by node D to node A via theSMTP protocol.

FIG. 4D shows the state of the rule sets after node D has attempted toinitiate communication with node B via the HTTP protocol. In effect, thesituation described with reference to this figure is the reverse case ofthe situation described with reference to FIG. 4B, above. An inspectionof the tables shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B shows that this communication isauthorized, because node B belongs to Group2 (FIG. 3A, row 304 c),Group2 has granted authorization to members of Group3 to transmit datavia the HTTP protocol (FIG. 3B, row 314 d), and node D is a member ofGroup3 (FIG. 3A, row 304 e). Therefore, DTM2 will successfully negotiateauthorization for node D to transmit data to node B via HTTP, theapplicable rule will be added by DTM2 in row 439 c and by DTM1 in row434 c, and data sent from node D via the HTTP protocol to node B will beforwarded by DTM2. Note also that in this example that node D ispermitted to transmit data to node B via multiple protocols (e.g., bothHTTP and SMTP). Some embodiments may perform an optimization in suchcases by responding to a negotiation request regarding a particulartransmission protocol with a response that indicates all of thetransmission protocols that the sending node is authorized to use tocommunicate with the destination node (as opposed to only the requestedprotocol), such as to in this example cause additional rules to be addedfor DTM1 and DTM2 to indicate that node D is authorized to send SMTPcommunications to node B. Such an optimization eliminates the need toperform additional later negotiations with respect to the otherauthorized protocols.

FIG. 4E shows the state of the rule sets after node A has attempted toinitiate communication with node B via the FTP protocol. In this case,the source and destination nodes are both managed by the same DTM, andin some embodiments DTM1 may not manage such data transmissions,although in the illustrated embodiment such data transmissions aremanaged (although DTM1 does not have to negotiate with a remote DTM inthis case). An inspection of the tables shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B showsthat this communication is not authorized, because node B belongs toGroup2 (FIG. 3A, row 304 c), node A belongs to Group1 (FIG. 3A, row 304b), but Group2 has not granted authorization for members of Group1 totransmit data via the FTP protocol (FIG. 3B, row 314 c). DTM1 thereforeadds the applicable rule to row 444 d and drops any data transmittedfrom node A to node B using the FTP protocol.

FIG. 4F shows the state of the rule sets after node B has attempted toinitiate communication with node D via the FTP protocol. This figureshows an example of an attempt by a source node to transmit data to apreviously allowed destination node, but using a different protocol. Aninspection of the tables shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B shows that thiscommunication is not authorized, because node B belongs to Group2 (FIG.3A, row 304 c), node D belongs to Group3 (FIG. 3A, row 304 e) but Group3has not granted authorization to members of Group2 to transmit data viathe FTP protocol (FIG. 3B, row 314 f). Therefore, DTM1 will not besuccessful in negotiating authorization for node B to transmit data tonode D via FTTP and the applicable rule will be added by DTM1 in row 454e and by DTM2 in row 459 d. In addition, DTM1 will drop any datatransmitted from node B to node D using the FTP protocol.

Thus, in the manner indicated, the transmission manager components maydynamically create transmission management rules based on managinginitiated data transmissions. While not illustrated here, in otherembodiments the rule sets for a transmission manager component and/orfor a particular node may be modified in other manners, such as toremove all rules corresponding to a node after its associated groupmembership or other relevant information changes (e.g., after a programbeing executed on behalf of a first customer on a virtual machine nodeis terminated) so that the node (or another node that is later allocatedthe same relevant information, such as the same network address as waspreviously used by the node) will need to re-negotiate to determineappropriate authorizations, or instead to remove only rules that areaffected by a particular change. For example, if the access policies forgroup3 are dynamically changed at the current time so that group2 nolonger is authorized to sent HTTP communications to group3, node B (ofgroup2) will no longer be authorized to send HTTP transmissions to nodeD (of group3). Accordingly, rule 454 a for DTM1 and rule 459 a for DTM2are no longer valid, and the change to the access policy will promptthose two rules to be removed, but other rules involving nodes B and D(e.g., rules 454 e and 459 d for DTM1 and DTM2, respectively) may bemaintained in at least some embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates examples of data transmissions between twointercommunicating computing nodes and associated transmission managercomponents that manage the communications, with the data transmissionsshown in a time-based order (with time proceeding downwards). Themessage names and message contents in this example are illustrative ofmessages that may be passed between DTM 1 and DTM 2 while managing nodesB and D, although other message passing or other interaction schemes arepossible in other embodiments. In addition, in some embodiments theinitiation of a data transmission and the corresponding protocol beingused may be determined by inspecting underlying data and/or controlpackets that are detected (e.g., TCP packets, User Datagram Protocol(“UDP”) packets, etc.). In particular, FIG. 5 shows an example ofmessages passed between nodes and DTMs during a successful negotiationas described with reference to FIG. 4B. Initially, node B 505 attemptsto send data via the HTTP protocol to node D 520 by transmitting a Sendmessage 530. DTM1 510 receives this message and takes it as anindication that node B is attempting to transmit data to node D. At thispoint, DTM1 has no rules governing such transmissions, so it attempts tonegotiate permission with DTM2 515. In this example it does so bysending an IsAllowed? message 532 that is received by DTM2, although inat least some embodiments the message 532 is addressed to remotedestination node D but intercepted by the DTM that manages the datatransmissions for that remote node, as discussed in greater detailelsewhere (in this way, a sending DTM may operate without knowledge ofthe network location of the remote DTM). DTM2 determines by inspectionof the appropriate data that node D has authorized such transmissions,and therefore sends an Allowed message 534 that is received by DTM1.Having received authorization to transmit, in the illustrated embodimentDTM1 transmits the data queued from the Send message 530 in a secondSend message 536 to node D that is again received by DTM2, who forwardsthis data via Send message 538 to its final destination of node D 520.As previously noted, in other embodiments DMT1 may not queue the Sendmessage 530 while performing the negotiation, and thus would nottransmit the Send message 536 in this example. Subsequent to thenegotiation, node B attempts to transmit more data to node D by sendinga Send message 540. Since DTM1 has previously negotiated authorizationfor this type of data transmission, it forwards the data via Sendmessage 542 without additional negotiation. DTM2 receives Send message542 and similarly forwards the data to node D via Send message 544.

Next, FIG. 5 shows an example of messages passed between nodes and DTMsduring a successful negotiation as described with reference to FIG. 4D.Initially, node D attempts to transmit data to node B via HTTP by way ofthe Send message 550. If the data transmission is related to the priorauthorized data transmissions from node B to node D using HTTP (e.g., isa reply to received Send message 544 or otherwise is part of the samesession), DTM1 and DTM2 will in some embodiments automatically haveauthorized such reply data transmissions as part of the priornegotiation process, as discussed in greater detail elsewhere—thisability to automatic authorize such replies may provide variousbenefits, such as to enable some types of transmission protocols (e.g.,TCP) to function effectively. In this example, however, DTM2 insteadinitiates a separate authorization negotiation for the data transmissionwith the Is_Allowed? message 552. DTM1 determines by inspection of theappropriate data that node B has authorized such transmissions, andtherefore responds with an Allowed message 554. Finally, DTM2 forwardsthe queued data from Send message 550 by way of a new Send message 556,which DTM1 forwards to its ultimate destination by way of Send message558. Finally, FIG. 5 shows an example of messages passed between nodesand DTMs during a negotiation that results in a denial of authorizationas described with reference to FIG. 4F. Initially, node B attempts totransmit data to node D via FTP by way of the Send message 560. DTM1initiates negotiation with DTM2 via the Is_Allowed? message 562. DTM2determines by inspection of the appropriate data that node D has notauthorized such transmissions, and therefore responds with a Not Allowedmessage 564. In response, DTM1 drops the data received by way of theSend message 560.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram of an example embodiment of a NodeCommunication routine 600. The routine may be performed as part of theactions of a communicating node, such as virtual machine node 120 orcomputing system node 130 a shown in FIG. 1.

The routine begins in step 605, where it receives data sent from anothernode or an indication to transmit data to a remote node (e.g., fromanother part of the actions of the node). In step 610, the routinedetermines whether data was received from another node. If so, itproceeds to step 615 and processes the received data. If it was insteaddetermined in step 610 that an indication to transmit data was received,the routine proceeds to step 625 and transmits data to the appropriatedestination. After step 625 or 615 the routine proceeds to step 620 todetermine whether to continue. If so, the routine returns to step 605,and if not continues to step 699 and ends.

FIGS. 7A-7B illustrate a flow diagram of an example embodiment of aTransmission Manager routine 700. The routine may be provided byexecution of, for example, a data transmission manager component, suchas DTM 115 or DTM 125 shown in FIG. 1.

The routine begins in step 705 and receives an outgoing transmission, anincoming transmission, a negotiation request, or a management message.The routine then proceeds to step 710 and determines the type of messageor request received in step 705. If it is determined in step 710 thatthe routine has received an indication of an outgoing transmission, theroutine proceeds to step 715 to determine whether it has an applicablerule indicating a prior negotiation for authorization. An applicablerule may be one that either allows or denies the transmission from thesource node to the destination node indicated by the outgoingtransmission. If it is determined that no such rule exists, the routineproceeds to step 720 and initiates a negotiation for authorization bysending a request to the destination node. In the example embodiment,while the request is sent to the destination node, it is intercepted bya remote DTM that manages the destination node (thus allowing the DTM toinitiate negotiation without specific knowledge of the network addressof the remote DTM), although in other embodiments the negotiationrequest message may instead be send directly to an appropriate DTM(e.g., via a mapping of destination nodes to the remote DTMs that managethem) or in another manner. Next, the routine proceeds to step 725 toreceive either a response or a timeout. A timeout may be received if forsome reason the remote DTM has gone offline or is otherwise unreachable.If no response from the remote DTM is received within a pre-determinedtimeout, the lack of response is treated as a response that deniesauthorization to communicate in this embodiment, although in otherembodiments the lack of a response could be treated as an authorizationor could trigger additional attempts to negotiate for authorization. Theroutine then proceeds to step 730 to determine whether authorization hasbeen granted to transmit data from the source to the destination node.If an explicit allowance of authorization was received (e.g. a messagecontaining an indication of authorization), the routine proceeds to step735 and adds an allowance transmission management rule that authorizesfuture data transmissions from the source to the destination node. Ifinstead the routine receives an explicit denial of authorization or atimeout, the routine proceeds to step 765 to add a rule indicating adenial of authorization, and drops any data that is received from thesource node and bound for the given destination node. In this example,the added denial of authorization rule includes expiration criteria,such as a timeout or expiration date, such as to force renegotiation ofdata transmission rules on a periodic basis in order to assure thatdynamic changes to group memberships, access policies, and/or nodenetwork identities will be correctly reflected in the rule setsmaintained by various DTMs.

If it is instead determined in step 715 that a rule governing datatransmissions from the source node to the destination node does exist,the routine proceeds to step 755 to determine whether the ruleauthorizes such transmissions. If so, or after step 735, the routineproceeds to step 740 and transmits the data from the source node to thedestination node. If it is instead determined in step 755 that the ruledenies authorization for data transmissions from the source node to thedestination node, the routine proceeds to step 760 and drops any datafrom the source node that is bound for the given destination node. Notethat in embodiments that do not queue and instead discard data receivedduring pending negotiations for authorization, steps such as 725 and 740may be somewhat simplified. For example, an embodiment that does notqueue data while awaiting a response to a negotiation request may notwait to receive a timeout as described with reference to step 725 above,because there will be no accumulation of queued data to either discardor transmit depending on the outcome of the pending negotiation. Inaddition, in such cases the routine may proceed directly from step 735to step 745, bypassing step 740, because there will be no data totransmit (since any data that initiated an authorization negotiationwould have been discarded rather than queued).

If it is instead determined in step 710 that the routine has received anegotiation request from a remote DTM that is attempting to obtainpermission for a source node to communicate with one of the destinationnodes managed by the DTM, the routine proceeds to step 770 to determinethe source node address and the groups to which the source node belongs.In some embodiments, some or all of information will be provided to theDTM as part of the received negotiation request from the remote DTM.Alternatively, the DTM may acquire some or all of this information inother manners, such as from another system component (e.g., the DTMGroup Manager 140 or DTM System Manager 150 of FIG. 1). Next, theroutine proceeds to step 772 to determine whether the network address ofthe source node has been granted authorization to communicate with thedestination node. If not, the routine continues to step 774 to determinewhether at least one of the source node's groups has been grantedpermission to communicate with the destination node. If not, the routinecontinues to step 776 and adds a rule that denies authorization fortransmissions from the source node to the destination node which mayinclude expiration criteria to force renegotiation of data transmissionrules on a periodic basis. Next, the routine continues to step 778 andsends a response to the remote DTM denying authorization to communicate.If it is instead determined in step 772 or step 774 that the source nodehas been granted authorization to communicate with the destination node,however, the routine proceeds to step 782 and adds a rule thatauthorizes communication from the source node to the destination node.Next, the routine proceeds to step 784, where it sends a response to theremote DTM indicating the authorization for the source node tocommunicate with the destination node.

If it is instead determined in step 710 that the routine has receivedincoming data, the routine proceeds to step 786. In step 786, theroutine determines whether a rule exists in the rule set that authorizescommunication from the source node of the incoming data to thedestination node of the incoming data. If it is so determined in step788, the routine continues to step 790 and forwards the data onwards tothe final destination node. If no rule exists that denies authorizationfor such communication, or a rule exists that explicitly deniesauthorization for such communication, the routine proceeds to step 792and drops the incoming data. In addition, in some embodiments the DTMmay in this case send a message to the remote DTM that originally sentthe data that such communication was not permitted, thereby informingthe remote DTM that it should invalidate some or all of the rulesrelated to this particular destination node.

If it is instead determined in step 710 that the routine has received amanagement message, the routine proceeds to step 794. Managementmessages may include notifications that one or more of the nodes managedby the DTM have gone offline, notifications that a new node to bemanaged by the DTM has come online, etc. In some embodiments, when a newnode comes online, the DTM that manages the new node may determinenetwork location (e.g. network address) of the new node, the groups towhich the new node belongs, the source nodes or other senders(individual nodes or groups) that have been granted authorization tocommunicate with the new node, the particular protocols that senders mayuse to communicate with the new node, etc. In other embodiments, the DTMmay alternatively delay the acquisition of such information until alater time, such as when the new node first sends outboundcommunication, or when the first inbound communication destined for thenew node arrives. Such information may be obtained by the DTM bycommunicating with other system components such as the DTM Group Manager140 or the DTM System Manager of FIG. 1, or by reference tonetwork-accessible data stores. Similarly, when a node managed by theDTM goes offline, the DTM may flush any rules from its rule set thatreference the node as either a source or a destination node. The DTM mayalso flush any information related to the network identity, groupmembership, and/or access policies of the node.

After steps 760, 740, 765, 784, 778, 790, 792 or 794, the routinecontinues to step 780 to optionally perform housekeeping tasks (e.g.,checking the expiration criteria associated with rules stored in a TMcomponent's rule set). In some embodiments rules may be set to expireautomatically after a specified time interval. In other embodiments, theDTM periodically examines the rules in the rule set and flushes ordeletes those that have reached a certain age. Other housekeeping tasksmay include operations such as updating or rotating logs, or handlingadditional messages or requests not illustrated in the above flowchart.For example, in some cases the above example embodiment of a DTM willhave an authorization rule that has gone stale—that is, theauthorization rule will make reference to a destination node that has atsome point after the initial negotiation of permission gone offline. Insuch a case, the DTM may not be aware that the destination node has goneoffline until one of the source nodes under the management of the DTMattempts to transmit data to that node. Because the DTM has a rule thatallows such transmission, the DTM will transmit the data to thedestination node. However, the remote DTM will reject the transmissionand reply with a message informing the DTM to invalidate the rule thatallowed such a transmission (or alternatively all rules that referencethe node as a destination node). In response, the DTM will flush some orall stored rules related to the given destination node as appropriate.

After step 745, the routine proceeds to step 750 to determine whether tocontinue. If so, the routine returns to step 705, and if not continuesto step 799 and ends.

FIG. 8 illustrates a flow diagram of an example embodiment of a DTMSystem Manager routine 800. This routine may be provided by executionof, for example, the DTM System Manager 150 shown in FIG. 1. The routinebegins in step 805 and receives a request to perform a user accountoperation or to configure group information. Next, the routine proceedsto step 810 to determine whether it has received a request to perform auser account operation. If so, it proceeds to step 840 and performs therequested user account operation as appropriate (e.g., creation ordeletion of user accounts, modifications to user account settings suchas billing information, the reservation of computing time or otherresources provided by the data center, the provision and management ofmachine images or application profiles, etc.). If it is not determinedthat a user account operation has been requested in step 810, theroutine continues to step 815 to determine whether it has received arequest to configure group access policy. If so, the routine continuesto step 845 and sets or otherwise configures a group access policy asrequested and as appropriate. These access policies may, for example,resemble those depicted in the table of FIG. 3B. In some cases, theroutine may in addition notify some DTMs (e.g., only those that aremanaging nodes that are affected by the indicated access policy) or allof the DTMs of the indicated access policy. If it is not determined instep 815 that a request to configure a group access policy has beenreceived, the routine proceeds instead to step 820 where it determineswhether it has received a request to specify group membership. If so, itcontinues to step 850 and performs modifications to group membershipinformation as appropriate. In some cases, the routine may in additionnotify some DTMs (e.g., only those that are managing nodes that areaffected by the group membership specification) or all of the DTMs ofthe group membership modification. If it is not determined in step 820that a request to specify group membership has been received, theroutine proceeds instead to step 825 to handle other requests. Otherrequests may include operations such as the creation of new groups, thedeletion of groups, modifications to existing groups or user accountsnot handled by the steps above, etc. After steps 830, 840, 845, or 850,the routine proceeds to step 830 and optionally performs additionalhousekeeping operations (e.g., the periodic generation of billinginformation for users, access and operation logging or log rotation,system backups, or other management or administrative functions). Next,the routine proceeds to step 835 to determine whether to continue. Ifso, the routine proceeds to step 805 to process additional incomingrequests. If not, the routine proceeds to step 899 and returns.

Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that in some embodimentsthe functionality provided by the routines discussed above may beprovided in alternative ways, such as being split among more routines orconsolidated into fewer routines. Similarly, in some embodimentsillustrated routines may provide more or less functionality than isdescribed, such as when other illustrated routines instead lack orinclude such functionality respectively, or when the amount offunctionality that is provided is altered. In addition, while variousoperations may be illustrated as being performed in a particular manner(e.g., in serial or in parallel) and/or in a particular order, thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that in other embodiments theoperations may be performed in other orders and in other manners. Thoseskilled in the art will also appreciate that the data structuresdiscussed above may be structured in different manners, such as byhaving a single data structure split into multiple data structures or byhaving multiple data structures consolidated into a single datastructure. Similarly, in some embodiments illustrated data structuresmay store more or less information than is described, such as when otherillustrated data structures instead lack or include such informationrespectively, or when the amount or types of information that is storedis altered.

As previously noted, in some embodiments the initiation of a datatransmission or other communication by a computing node may occur andmay be identified by an associated data transmission manager componentin a variety of ways. In some embodiments, the computing node may sendan explicit message to the TM component that manages it requestingpermission to communicate with a remote node, while in other embodimentsthe existence of the TM and the authorization negotiation that itperforms may be entirely transparent to the computing node—if so, thecomputing node simply attempts to send data to the remote node, whilethe TM component monitors and processes all outgoing transmissions fromthe computing node. When the TM component identifies an initiated datatransmission from the computing node (whether by receiving an explicitrequest message from the computing node, by detecting an outboundtransmission for which it has not already negotiated permission, such asby inspecting the source and destination network addresses of TCP or UDPpackets as they flow across a network interface, etc.), the TMcomponents initiates an authorization negotiation if the existence ofauthorization or an authorization denial does not already exist. Whilethe TM component negotiates authorization, it may queue the outgoingdata from the computing node that is bound for the remote destinationnode and process the data according to the authorization negotiationresults (e.g. by allowing or preventing the data transmission to proceedto the destination node), as well as optionally manipulate data beforeit is forwarded on to the destination node (e.g., to include indicationsof obtained authorization for use by the destination computing nodeand/or destination transmission component in verifying authorizationand/or authenticity of the data transmissions; to modify the manner inwhich the data is transmitted, such as to change the data format and/ortransmission protocol to reflect preferences of the destinationcomputing node or for other reasons; to modify the data that istransmitted, such as by adding and/or removing data; etc.).

In addition, various embodiments may provide mechanisms for customerusers and other users to interact with an embodiment of the DTM system.For example, some embodiments may provide an interactive console (e.g. aclient application program providing an interactive user interface, aWeb browser-based interface, etc.) from which users can manage thecreation or deletion of groups and the specification of communicationaccess policies or group membership, as well as more generaladministrative functions related to the operation and management ofhosted applications (e.g., the creation or modification of useraccounts; the provision of new applications; the initiation,termination, or monitoring of hosted applications; the assignment ofapplications to groups; the reservation of time or other systemresources; etc.). In addition, some embodiments may provide an API(“application programming interface”) that allows other computingsystems and programs to programmatically invoke such functionality. SuchAPIs may be provided by libraries or class interfaces (e.g., to beinvoked by programs written in C, C++, or Java) and/or network serviceprotocols such as via Web services.

In addition, various implementation architectures are possible forembodiments of the DTM system. In some embodiments, multiple TMcomponents may act in a distributed manner to each manage the datatransmissions of one or more associated nodes, whether by each operatingas an independent autonomous program or by cooperating with other TMcomponents, and may possibly be hosted virtual machines on the samecomputing system as the nodes being managed or may instead operate oncomputing systems remote from the nodes that they manage. Whileauthorization negotiations have been described in which TM componentsinteract directly with each other, in other embodiments such TMcomponents may instead negotiate authorizations in other manners, suchas by communicating with a central component that manages communicationpolicies for the entire system, or by referencing configuration files orother static information stores that are available locally or over anetwork. In addition, the authorization negotiation performed by TMcomponents may have a variety of forms. For example, in someembodiments, the actual network address or other identity of a remote TMcomponent may be known to a TM component initiating a negotiation, andif so, that TM component may interact directly with that remote TMcomponent, while in other embodiments the TM component may sendinformation to the network address of the destination computing nodewith the expectation that the sent information will be intercepted bythe appropriate remote TM component. In other embodiments, a single,central TM component or other component may manage the datatransmissions for a large number of computing nodes (e.g. an entire datacenter) if the single component has access to data transmissionsinitiated by those nodes (whether due to configuration of the nodes orto a network structure or other mechanism that provides such access). Instill other embodiments, the functionality of a TM component may bedistributed, such as by being incorporated into each of the computingnodes being managed (e.g., by being built into system libraries used fornetwork communications by all of the nodes), or a distinct TM componentmay operate on behalf of each computing node.

In addition, in embodiments in which the functionality of the DTM systemis distributed amongst various system components, various negotiationschemes and protocols are possible. Negotiation requests and othermessages related to data transmission policies and permissions that arepassed between TM components or between TM components and other systemcomponents may be implemented in various manners, such as by sendinglow-level UDP packets containing the relevant information, or by way ofprotocols implemented upon higher-level protocols such as HTTP (e.g.XML-RPC, SOAP, etc).

As previously noted, the described techniques may be employed on behalfof numerous computing nodes to provide various benefits to thosecomputing nodes. In addition, such computing nodes may in at least someembodiments further employ additional techniques on their own behalf toprovide other capabilities, such as by each configuring and providingtheir own firewalls for incoming communications, anti-virus protectionand protection against other malware, etc.

When the described techniques are used with a group of computing nodesinternal to some defined boundary (e.g., nodes within a data center),such as due to an ability to obtain access to the data transmissionsinitiated by those computing nodes, the described techniques may also insome embodiments be extended to the edge of the defined boundary. Thus,in addition to managing data transmissions between computing nodeswithin the defined boundary, one or more transmission manager componentsthat may access communications passing through the boundary betweeninternal and external computing nodes may similarly provide at leastsome of the described techniques for those communications. For example,when a data communication is received at the boundary from an externalcomputing node that is intended for an internal computing node, atransmission manager component associated with the edge may similarlytreat the communication as an outgoing data transmission initiated by amanaged computing node, such as by queuing the communication andallowing it to be passed into the internal network only if authorizationis negotiated and obtained (e.g., by negotiating with a transmissionmanager component associated with the destination computing node, orinstead with a component acting on behalf of all internal computingnodes).

Those skilled in the art will also realize that although in someembodiments the described techniques are employed in the context of adata center housing multiple intercommunicating nodes, otherimplementation scenarios are also possible. For example, the describedtechniques may be employed in the context an organization-wide intranetoperated by a business or other institution (e.g. university) for thebenefit of its employees and/or members. Alternatively, the describedtechniques could be employed by a network service provider to improvenetwork security, availability, and isolation. In addition, exampleembodiments may be employed within a data center or other context for avariety of purposes. For example, data center operators or users thatsell access to hosted applications to customers may in some embodimentsuse the described techniques to provide network isolation between theircustomers' applications and data; software development teams may in someembodiments use the described techniques to provide network isolationbetween various environments that they use (e.g., development, build,test, deployment, production, etc.); organizations may in someembodiments use the described techniques to isolate the computingresources utilized by one personnel group or department (e.g., humanresources) from the computing resources utilized by another personnelgroup or department (e.g., accounting); or data center operators orusers that are deploying a multi-component application (e.g., amulti-tiered business application) may in some embodiments use thedescribed techniques to provide functional decomposition and/orisolation for the various component types (e.g., Web front-ends,database servers, business rules engines, etc.). More generally, thedescribed techniques may be used to partition virtual machines toreflect almost any situation that would conventionally necessitatephysical partitioning of distinct computing systems.

From the foregoing it will be appreciated that, although specificembodiments have been described herein for purposes of illustration,various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit andscope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited exceptas by the appended claims and the elements recited therein. In addition,while certain aspects of the invention are presented below in certainclaim forms, the inventors contemplate the various aspects of theinvention in any available claim form. For example, while only someaspects of the invention may currently be recited as being embodied in acomputer-readable medium, other aspects may likewise be so embodied.

1-9. (canceled)
 10. A computer-implemented method for managing outgoingdata transmissions from multiple virtual machine nodes, the methodcomprising: receiving multiple indications of outgoing transmissions ofdata being initiated by multiple source nodes that are each one ofmultiple virtual machines hosted by a host computing system, eachindicated data transmission being from one of the source nodes to aremote destination node; and for each initiated outgoing transmission ofdata from a source node to a remote destination node, automaticallydetermining if authorization already exists for transmissions from thesource node to the destination node, the automatic determining beingperformed by the host computing system; if authorization does notalready exist for transmissions from the source node to the destinationnode, attempting to obtain authorization by automatically initiating anegotiation for authorization to transmit to the destination node, theautomatic initiating being performed by the host computing system andincluding sending a request with information regarding the source nodeto a recipient associated with the destination node; and if theauthorization is obtained from the negotiation, transmitting the data tothe destination node on behalf of the source node and storing anindication of the obtained authorization for use in authorizing futuretransmissions of data from the source node to the destination nodewithout negotiation.
 11. The method of claim 10 further comprising, foreach of one or more of the initiated outgoing transmissions of data froma source node to a remote destination node, if authorization is notobtained from an initiated negotiation, preventing transmitting of thedata to the destination node and storing an indication of a lack ofauthorization for use in preventing authorization for futuretransmissions of data from the source node to the destination node. 12.The method of claim 11 wherein, for each of one or more of the initiatedoutgoing transmissions of data from a source node to a remotedestination node, the determining if authorization already exists fortransmissions from the source node to the destination node includesdetermining that authorization does not already exist if no storedindications exist from a prior initiated transmission from the sourcenode to the remote destination node so as to indicate authorization orlack of authorization for future transmissions from the source node tothe destination node, and further comprising preventing transmitting ofthe data to the destination node if it is determined that a storedindication from a prior initiated transmission indicates a lack ofauthorization for transmissions from the source node to the destinationnode.
 13. The method of claim 11 wherein each stored indication of alack of authorization from an initiated outgoing transmission of datafrom a source node to a remote destination node includes a createdtransmission management rule that indicates that future transmissions ofdata from the source node to the destination node are not authorized.14. The method of claim 13 wherein each stored indication of obtainedauthorization from an initiated outgoing transmission of data from asource node to a remote destination node includes a created transmissionmanagement rule that indicates that future transmissions of data fromthe source node to the destination node are authorized.
 15. The methodof claim 14 wherein at least some of the stored transmission managementrules each have an associated expiration time after which the rule is nolonger used to determine whether transmissions are authorized.
 16. Themethod of claim 10 wherein, for each of one or more of the initiatedoutgoing transmissions of data from a source node to a remotedestination node, the stored indication of the obtained authorizationincludes an indication that future transmissions of response data fromthe destination node to the source node are authorized.
 17. The methodof claim 10 further comprising, for each of one or more of the multiplesource nodes that initiated the outgoing transmissions of data, andafter authorization is obtained for an initiated transmission of datafrom the source node to a remote destination node, receiving indicationsof one or more additional transmissions of data from the source node tothe destination node and allowing the additional transmissions to occurwithout additional negotiation based on the obtained authorization. 18.The method of claim 17 further comprising, for each of one or more ofthe multiple source nodes that initiated the outgoing transmissions ofdata, and after authorization is obtained for an initiated transmissionof data from the source node to a remote destination node, receivingindications of one or more additional transmissions of data from thesource node to other remote destination nodes and preventing theadditional transmissions of data from being sent to the other remotedestination nodes while initiating negotiations to attempt to obtainauthorization for the additional transmissions.
 19. The method of claim10 wherein, for each of one or more of the initiated outgoingtransmissions of data from a source node to a remote destination node,the sent request that initiates the negotiation for authorizationincludes an indication of a network address of the source node, andwherein authorization for the transmission is based at least in part onthe indicated network address being permitted to communicate with thedestination node. 20-21. (canceled)
 22. The method of claim 10 wherein,for each of one or more of the initiated outgoing transmissions of datafrom a source node to a remote destination node, the sent request thatinitiates the negotiation for authorization includes an indication ofone or more groups of which the source node is a member.
 23. The methodof claim 22 wherein each of the groups include multiple virtual machinenode members that are each authorized to communicate with the othermembers of the group.
 24. The method of claim 22 wherein each of thegroups include multiple virtual machine node members that are allauthorized to communicate with one or more other virtual machine nodes.25. The method of claim 22 further comprising, for each of one or moreof the multiple virtual machine nodes from which outgoing datatransmissions are managed, receiving an indication that the virtualmachine node is a member of one or more of multiple defined node groups.26. The method of claim 25 further comprising, for each of the one ormore virtual machine nodes, receiving a request with informationregarding a remote node that has initiated a transmission to the virtualmachine node, and responding with an indication of whether thetransmission to the virtual machine node is authorized based at least inpart on the one or more defined node groups of which the virtual machinenode is a member.
 27. The method of claim 26 further comprising, foreach of the one or more virtual machine nodes, if the transmission tothe virtual machine node from the remote node is authorized, storing anindication for use in automatically authorizing future transmissions ofdata from the remote node to the virtual machine node.
 28. The method ofclaim 10 further comprising partitioning at least some of the multiplevirtual machine nodes into at least a first node group and a second nodegroup each having multiple virtual machine node members such that noneof the virtual machine node members of the first node group are alsomembers of the second node group.
 29. The method of claim 28 wherein themultiple virtual machine node members of the first node group are usedfor one of software development, software testing, and softwaredeployment, and wherein the multiple virtual machine node members of thesecond node group are used for another of software development, softwaretesting, and software deployment.
 30. The method of claim 28 wherein themultiple virtual machine node members of the first node group are usedto provide a first type of application and the multiple virtual machinenode members of the second node group are used to provide a distinctsecond type of application, and wherein the members of the first nodegroup interoperate with the members of the second node group to providea multi-tiered business application.
 31. The method of claim 28 whereinthe multiple virtual machine node members of the first node group areutilized by a first structural subset of an organization and themultiple virtual machine node members of the second node group areutilized by a distinct second structural subset of the organization. 32.The method of claim 10 further comprising receiving one or moredefinitions of groups from a service that provides use of one or moreapplications to multiple customers, and wherein the service assigns adistinct group to each of its multiple customers.
 33. The method ofclaim 10 wherein at least some of the multiple virtual machine nodeseach belong to one or more groups of nodes, wherein negotiations forauthorization for source nodes to transmit to destination nodes arebased at least in part on groups to which the source and destinationnodes belong, and wherein the method further comprises modifying thegroups of nodes based on one or more received indications of groupmanagement operations, each indicated group management operation beingone of an instruction to create a new group, an instruction to delete anexisting group, and an instruction to change the virtual machine nodesthat belong to an existing group.
 34. The method of claim 33 wherein thenegotiations for authorization for source nodes to transmit todestination nodes are further based at least in part on access policiesassociated with the groups to which the source and destination nodesbelong, and wherein the method further comprises modifying accesspolicies associated with groups based on one or more receivedindications of access policies, each indicated access policy including aspecification of conditions under which a first group of one or moresource nodes are authorized to communicate with members of a secondgroup of destination nodes.
 35. The method of claim 10 wherein, for eachof one or more of the initiated outgoing transmissions of data from asource node to a remote destination node, the sent request thatinitiates the negotiation for authorization includes an indication ofone or more groups with which the source node is authorized tocommunicate.
 36. The method of claim 10 wherein, for each of one or moreof the initiated outgoing transmissions of data from a source node to aremote destination node, the received indication of the datatransmission includes one or more data packets addressed to the remotedestination node that are sent from the source node.
 37. The method ofclaim 36 wherein, for each of the one or more initiated outgoing datatransmissions, the receiving of the indication of the data transmissionincludes intercepting the data packets sent by the source node anddiscarding the data packets if authorization does not already exist fortransmissions from the source node to the destination node.
 38. Themethod of claim 36 wherein, for each of the one or more initiatedoutgoing data transmissions, the receiving of the indication of the datatransmission includes intercepting the data packets sent by the sourcenode, and further comprising queuing the data packets during negotiationfor authorization to transmit the data packets to the destination nodefor the data packets.
 39. The method of claim 10 wherein, for each ofone or more of the initiated outgoing transmissions of data from asource node to a remote destination node, the request that initiatesnegotiation is sent to a computing system that hosts the destinationnode.
 40. The method of claim 39 wherein, for each of one or more of theinitiated outgoing transmissions of data from a source node to a remotedestination node, the request sent to the computing system that hoststhe destination node is addressed to the destination node and isintercepted by the computing system that hosts the destination node. 41.The method of claim 10 wherein, for each of one or more of the initiatedoutgoing transmissions of data from a source node to a remotedestination node, the data transmission includes a request to access anetwork service provided by the destination node.
 42. The method ofclaim 10 wherein the method is performed by a traffic manager programexecuting on a virtual machine hosted by the host computing system thatis distinct from the multiple hosted virtual machines that are themultiple source nodes.
 43. The method of claim 42 wherein the distincthosted virtual machine is a privileged virtual machine via whichtransmissions to and from the multiple hosted virtual machines pass. 44.The method of claim 42 wherein, for each of one or more of the initiatedoutgoing transmissions of data from a source node to a remotedestination node, the request that initiates negotiation is received bya traffic manager program executing as part of a hosted virtual machineon a computing system that hosts the destination node as a distinctvirtual machine, and further comprising, under control of the trafficmanager program that receives the request, determining whether thesource node is authorized to perform the transmission of data to thedestination node and sending a reply indicating that authorization isprovided if the source node is determined to be authorized.
 45. Themethod of claim 10 further comprising, for each of one or more of themultiple source nodes, in response to receiving an indication that thevirtual machine source node has been terminated, removing all storedindications of authorizations for the source node.
 46. The method ofclaim 10 further comprising, for one or more of the multiple sourcenodes, storing an indication that disallows transmission of data fromthe source node if a volume of data transmitted by the source nodeexceeds a pre-determined threshold.
 47. A non-transitorycomputer-readable medium whose contents configure a computing device tomanage data transmissions for a node, by performing a method comprising:receiving an indication of a transmission of data initiated from asending node to a remote destination node; preventing the data frombeing transmitted to the destination node while automaticallydetermining whether the data transmission is authorized, the automaticdetermining being performed by the configured computing device andincluding initiating a negotiation for authorization with anothercomputing device associated with the remote destination node; and if thenegotiated authorization is obtained, allowing data to be transmitted tothe destination node.
 48. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 47 wherein the method is performed by a node on the configuredcomputing device that is distinct from the sending node and from thedestination node and that is associated with multiple nodes includingthe sending node, wherein the another computing device includes anothernode that is distinct from the sending node and from the destinationnode and that is associated with multiple nodes including thedestination node, and wherein the method further comprises, if thenegotiated authorization is obtained, storing a transmission managementrule that will allow future transmission of data from the sending nodeto the destination node without negotiation, and if the negotiatedauthorization is not obtained, continuing to prevent the data from beingtransmitted to the destination node.
 49. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 48 wherein the configured computingdevice is a host computing system on which multiple virtual machinenodes execute, wherein the sending node is one of the multiple virtualmachines nodes, wherein the destination node is one of multiple othervirtual machines executing on another host computing system, and whereinthe receiving of the indication of the data transmission and thepreventing of the data from being transmitted to the destination nodeincludes intercepting the data transmission to the destination node. 50.The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 47 wherein thecomputer-readable medium is a memory of the configured computing device.51. (canceled)
 52. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim47 wherein the contents are instructions that when executed program theconfigured computing device to perform the method.
 53. A computingsystem configured to manage data transmissions from multiple computingnodes, the computing system comprising: a memory; and multiple hostedvirtual machines that each act as an independent computing node andexecute at least one application program in a portion of the memoryallocated to that virtual machine, one of the hosted virtual machinecomputing nodes being configured to manage data transmissions from theother hosted virtual machine computing nodes by: detecting indicationsof transmissions of data sent from the other hosted virtual machinecomputing nodes to other destination computing nodes that are not hostedby the computing system; for each detected indication of a datatransmission sent by one of the other hosted virtual machine computingnodes to a destination computing node, preventing the data transmissionuntil authorization is obtained for the one other hosted virtual machinecomputing node to send the indicated data transmission to thedestination computing node; sending a request to the destinationcomputing node for the authorization; and after receiving a replyindicating the authorization, allowing one or more data transmissions tobe sent to the destination computing node from the one other hostedvirtual machine computing node.
 54. The computing system of claim 53wherein the one hosted virtual machine computing node is furtherconfigured to, after receiving a reply indicating authorization for oneof the other hosted virtual machine computing nodes to send a datatransmission to a destination computing node, store a transmissionmanagement rule to authorize future transmissions of data from that oneother hosted virtual machine computing node to that destinationcomputing node without request, and to, after receiving a replyindicating a denial of authorization for one of the other hosted virtualmachine computing nodes to send a data transmission to a destinationcomputing node, store a transmission management rule to indicate a lackof authorization for future transmission of data from that one otherhosted virtual machine computing node to that destination node.
 55. Thecomputing system of claim 53 wherein, for each of the detectedtransmissions of data to a destination computing node, the destinationcomputing node is a virtual machine hosted on a remote host computingsystem, and wherein the request for authorization sent to thedestination computing node is intercepted by another virtual machinecomputing node hosted on the remote host computing system to manage datatransmissions involving the destination computing node, the anothervirtual machine computing node being configured to reply to theintercepted requests for authorization on behalf of the destinationcomputing node.
 56. The computing system of claim 53 wherein the onehosted virtual machine computing node is a data transmission manager.57. The computing system of claim 53 wherein each of the multiplevirtual machines hosted on the computing system has a distinct networkaddress.
 58. The computing system of claim 53 wherein the one hostedvirtual machine computing node consists of means for managing datatransmissions from the other hosted virtual machine computing nodes bydetecting indications of transmissions of data sent from the otherhosted virtual machine computing nodes to other destination computingnodes that are not hosted by the computing system, and by, for eachdetected indication of a data transmission sent by one of the otherhosted virtual machine computing nodes to a destination computing node,preventing the data transmission until authorization is obtained for theone other hosted virtual machine computing node to send the indicateddata transmission to the destination computing node, sending a requestto the destination computing node for the authorization, and allowingone or more data transmissions to be sent to the destination computingnode from the one other hosted virtual machine computing node afterreceiving a reply indicating the authorization.